Google's DMP Lockdown; Facebook Dabbles In Health

Google has been on a road tour of sorts with data-management providers, enforcing policies in the Google Display Network. Krux, BlueKai and Lotame have had their doorbells rung. Krux’s chief solutions officer, Mike Moreau, tells Adweek, "Google is only allowing data management platforms to fire pixels on creative assets that they're serving, on impressions they bought, through the Google Display Network.” If Google extends any restrictions to AdX, the consequences for buyers could be larger. More.

Limits Of Pharma

Following in the footsteps of Apple, Facebook has swerved into the health care arena. But “[a]ny advertising built around the health initiatives would not be as targeted as it could be on television or other media,” according to Reuters. “Pharmaceutical companies, for instance, are prohibited from using Facebook to promote the sale of prescription drugs, in part because of concerns surrounding disclosures.” According to three unnamed sources, Facebook is still in the “idea-gathering” stage and declined to comment.

Privacy Values

Brooklyn artist Risa Puno asked 380 New Yorkers to fork over a range of PII in exchange for a cookie. A “staggeringly high” percentage of participants ponied up home address, driver’s license number, phone number, partial social security numbers and more. ProPublica has more on the “highly unscientific but delicious” experiment.

WhatsApp Go-Ahead

European Union regulators gave the thumbs-up to Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, which was hotly contested by telecom corporations in Europe. “The regulator ultimately decided that Facebook’s control over consumers’ data wouldn’t harm competition in the online advertising market, and that privacy-related concerns fell outside its remit,” reports the WSJ. Unlike Google, Facebook still has tailwinds in Europe.

Early Days Of Automation

Programmatic was the big buzzword during NYC’s Advertising Week, but widespread automation of media buys is still nascent. “The efficiency of automating the buy/sell process and creating an ‘efficient market’ argument is theoretically solid, but has not yet been achieved in practice,” wrote Ace Metrix CEO Peter Daboll in a Friday column via Forbes. “There are well-documented issues with transparency and ‘value-stealing’ from the intermediaries.”